Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow left a bloody wake across multiple states during their highly publicized two-year crime spree, killing dozens and robbing countless others before they themselves were gunned down on a rural Louisiana highway. Their story didn’t end there, though, and their legacy continued to spawn entanglements with the law, according to an upcoming presentation that considers the multiple frauds that popped up related to the 1934 Ford in which the outlaws were killed.

While Barrow allegedly wrote Henry Ford directly in April 1934, praising the performance potential of Ford’s V-8, “For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got every other car skinned,” he did in fact show a predilection for V-8-powered Fords. Photos that he and Parker took of themselves and their gang before they were killed show them with a 1932 Ford convertible sedan and a 1933 Ford five-window coupe; one of their accomplices, W.D. Jones, barely made note of any other make or model of car in his accounts of the spree; and the six-man posse that caught up to the couple shot them more than 100 times as they sped along in a 1934 Ford Model 40 V-8 Fordor.

That particular 1934 Ford (engine number 649198) in fact belonged to Ruth Warren of Topeka, Kansas. She and her husband, Jesse, bought it that March and they had just finished breaking it in a little more than a month later when Parker and Barrow stole it – an act made all that much easier by the keys that Warren left in the ignition. The Ford reappeared another month later, on May 23, in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, riddled with bullet holes and stained with the two criminals’ blood; almost immediately the car became the subject of a federal lawsuit, brought by Ruth Warren against the local sheriff for refusing to release the Ford to her. Even after getting the Ford back, Warren had to go to court to retrieve it yet again, this time from an unscrupulous promoter, and the Ford would figure prominently in the Warrens’ divorce proceedings.

Crowds surrounded the 1934 Ford as it was towed into town after the ambush.

What’s worse, according to Brian Grams of the Volo Auto Museum, multiple bullet-riddled 1934 Ford Fordor sedans began appearing on the county fair and carnival circuit over the next few years, claimed to be the actual death car. The various owners sometimes vigorously defended their claims, too, casting doubt on the authenticity of even the real car. Aside from the damage to historical accuracy, the frauds cut into the revenue generated by Ruth Warren and the huckster shilling glimpses of the actual death car around the country. “It was a lot easier to get away with passing off a fake car as real back then, back before Twitter and Facebook,” Grams said. “Where there’s profit, there’s fraud.”

Interest in the Bonnie and Clyde death car waned by the late 1940s, but picked up again about 20 years later, when Warner Brothers released Bonnie and Clyde, starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. Tucked away in storage, Ruth Warren’s 1934 Ford – which had changed hands at least a couple of times by then – and the several frauds again saw the light of day and again sparked a series of lawsuits challenging the various claims to authenticity.

Among the hucksters parading the fake death cars around the country was the Lam-Sir Corporation of Houston, which shot up another 1934 Ford Fordor and exhibited it around Texas and the South before police confiscated it, Grams said. Warner Brothers then came across it and reportedly bought it not for use in the movie, but as a template for the movie cars.

Nowadays, it’s generally accepted that the actual death car sits on display on a casino floor in Primm, Nevada, after passing through the hands of a few different casino owners. While a few Fords made for the 1967 film are still around, Grams said he knows of only one of the fraudulent death cars, the Lam-Sir car, still in existence; according to Grams, Warner Brothers sold it to the Museum of American Tragedy, and when the latter closed in 1993, a private individual in Georgia bought it, intending to turn the Ford into a street rod; however, un-rodded, the Ford made its way into the Volo’s collection last year.

As the 80th anniversary of the deaths of Bonnie and Clyde – and the death car’s launch into infamy – approaches, Grams said he has prepared a history of the fraudulent Bonnie and Clyde death cars that he will present over Memorial Day weekend at the museum while alongside the Lam-Sir car and reproductions of the various signs and ephemera that accompanied the death cars, both real and fake, as they toured the country.

I just looked for images of the supposed Warren *B&C” car….at the casino in Primm….Amusingly there is a list of photos that pop both with 34 Fords…The Warren car has “Bonnie and Clyde Car” stencilled on the hood and the rear just below the rear windo. Another car, presumably in a casino, does not, and the bullet holes do not match. For instance, the Warren car has two bullet holes I can see in one photo in the low end rear portion of the front left fender….the other car behind ropes (the Warren car is behind glass) has that section of the fender shredded…
Of note…the car looks to be black in vintage photos shortly after the shooting….now its grey? Trick of photography way back I suppose….

It says near the top of the article, “…Barrow allegedly wrote Henry Ford directly…” There’s no “allegedly” about it; I know it for a fact. I have a photo of the actual pencil-written letter written by Barrow to Henry Ford, which is on display under glass at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI. At least it was in the fall of 1992 when I was there. I hope someday to go back and get a much better digital image of the letter. I got a laugh when I read it.